Praying for Pay

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from the LATimes.com, January 1, 2003, with a headline:Prayer ladies for hire, dateline, Manila.The come to Kiapo church to pray to the black Nazarene, a dark wooden statue of Jesus believed to have special powers.Desperate for a miracle, supplicants often roll up their clothing and crawl on bare knees from the back of the cathedral to the altar some 100 feet away.For some there is a less painful path; for a few pesos they can hire one of the church’s dozen or so prayer ladies to smooth the bumps on the hard road to salvation.God does not care who the prayer is coming from as long as the person who paid for the prayer is sincere, said Nanette Rosalis, 63, a widow who for more than two decades has been praying on behalf of others for a fee.Since colonial Spain brought Roman Catholicism to this sprawling Southeast Asian Archipelago four centuries ago Filipinos have customized their religion with local interpretations.Some worshipers reenact the crucifixion of Jesus by nailing their hands and feet to a cross.Others show piety by beating themselves bloody with broken glass.Then, there are other prayer peddlers.We are like a bridge to God, said Baby Florando, a 54-year-old prayer vendor.We help people who don't have time to pray, people who don’t know how to pray and people who need more people to help them pray.To many devout Filipino Catholics hiring someone else to perform such a basic act of piety is simply unchristian.It’s laughable, said Bernie Silvermonte, a researcher at the Archdiocese of Manila.God is everywhere, even if you are at work you can still pray.If you don’t know the exact words of the official prayer you just say, “Hello God, can I talk to you?”Others see their prayer ladies as conduit.“The church is a brokerage to heaven,” said Alex Monyo, a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines.“These women are just a second layer of middlemen.”The Kiapo church is the only one in Manila known to tolerate prayer ladies.Priests there say they discourage the practice but as long as the women keep a low profile no one drives them away.After attending mass with her husband and three children, Nita Petulin, glanced over at the prayer peddlers and said she would never hire one but understands why others do.“My sister did it when my father was sick, it worked,” Petulin said.“I know many friends who paid for prayers even though they are devout,” she said.Maybe they believe these women are closer to God because they are in church all the time.There can be an educational aspect of paying for prayer for a growing number of young Filipinos who attended public schools and did not grow up in church going families.The prayer ladies offer a guilt free crash course on the rituals of their faith.If you want to get married in a church you have to go to confession and get communion, said prayer lady Ellen DeOcompo.Some young people do not even know how to use the rosary, they don't know how to say the Hail Mary, and they pay us to do it for them until they learn how to do it themselves.

Tom:

Dave, as a former Roman Catholic, I’m surprised that the Church, especially this person with the Diocese of Manila that he would object to it.This is the way the Catholic Church has always been.Certainly you have these women taking money to pray for others, I don’t see that as being any different than paying the priest to say a mass for loved ones who, supposedly, are in purgatory.You know, there are many other things that are consistent with how the Church down through the centuries has worked.So why would they be upset with this?

Dave:

You know, it relates to what we were talking about before, Tom.Prayer comes from the heart and the Scripture says, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”If there’s nothing in the heart, no relationship with God, He says the prayer of the wicked--He doesn’t hear it.If you’re going to get somebody else that you think is more holy than you to pray for you, the Bible just doesn’t teach that sort of thing.It says there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.So, we go to the Father in the name of Jesus.We began with prayer this morning and I was the one that prayed this morning and I think I began by saying, Lord, we come to You in the name of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ and through His blood poured out upon the Cross and without that I’ve got no access to You.And a prayer lady isn’t going to help.It’s a personal matter, you know, we were talking about the purpose of God creating us, it has to be very personal.God wants to know me personally; He wants my heart’s affection.Well, the Scripture says, in fact this is a promise that God makes in the Old Testament, we also have it in the New and anyone listening this is for you, this is a promise of God that is universally applicable to anyone.“You will seek for ME and find ME when you seek for ME with all your heart.”

Tom:

Now Dave, we’re not denying the importance of having others pray for you.Paul asked continually throughout his epistles to pray, so we’re not denying that, but when prayer becomes- I don’t have time for it so I’m going to pay somebody else to do it for me, that’s where this has big time problems and we can’t just lay this on the Roman Catholic church.We have television evangelists of those who are hawking people to come and send in this money and then, you know, I have this anointing and so on and so forth.You know, they’re looking for some cash to perform on the behalf of others, so it’s not just in the Catholic Church.

Dave:

You see these big stacks of prayer requests they’ve got laid out on the table before them, hundreds and hundreds, and they kind of lay their hands on them and pray.

Tom:

And sometimes later bodies on them...

Dave:

That’s right.And they give you the impression often that, as you mentioned the Seed Faith that was Oral Roberts, him up with that invention.

Tom:

Robert Tilton.

Dave:

And not everybody but a lot of them do it.But give your Seed Faith Offering, when you pay God the fee that will start the miracles going.That’s a tragedy!But Tom, these dear ladies, I couldn’t examine their hearts or know their motive.Some of them are in it for the money, maybe some of them really think that they are helping and what these other people think when they nail themselves to a cross or when they get nailed to a cross.But God wants my heart, He wants my love, He wants my obedience, He wants my genuine affection and He wants me to really know him and love him.And that’s why we were created, this is what the word of God is about and this is what Jesus has accomplished for us, so let’s get to know Him personally.

Tom:

On His terms, not something that men make up.